The Wandering Jew — Volume 09 eBook

And all laugh, and knock glasses together, and challenge
the next man, and drink out of the glass of the nearest
woman. Jacques had taken off the mask and peruke
of Goodman Cholera. His thin, leaden features,
his deadly paleness, the lurid brilliancy of his hollow
eyes, showed the incessant progress of the slow malady
which was consuming this unfortunate man, brought
by excesses to the last extremity of weakness.
Though he felt the slow fire devouring his entrails,
he concealed his pain beneath a forced and nervous
smile.

To the left of Jacques was Morok, whose fatal influence
was ever on the increase, and to his right the girl
disguised as pleasure. She was named Mariette.
By her side sat Ninny Moulin, in all his majestic bulk,
who often pretended to be looking for his napkin under
the table, in order to have the opportunity of pressing
the knees of his other neighbor, Modeste, the representative
of love. Most of the guests were grouped
according to their several tastes, each tender pair
together, and the bachelors where they could.
They had reached the second course, and the excellence
of the wine, the good cheer, the gay speeches, and
even the singularity of the occasion, had raised their
spirits to a high degree of excitement, as may be
gathered from the extraordinary incidents of the following
scene.

[39] We read in the Constitutionnel, Saturday March
31st, 1832: “The Parisians readily conform
to that part of the official instructions with regard
to the cholera, which prescribes, as a preservation
from the disease, not to be afraid, to amuse one’s
self, etc. The pleasures of Mid-Lent have
been as brilliant and as mad as those of the carnival
itself. For a long time past there had not been
so many balls at this period of the year. Even
the cholera has been made the subject of an itinerant
caricature.”

CHAPTER XX.

Thedefiance.

Two or three times, without being remarked by the
guests, one of the waiters had come to whisper to
his fellows, and point with expressive gesture to
the ceiling. But his comrades had taken small
account of his observations or fears, not wishing,
doubtless, to disturb the guests, whose mad gayety
seemed ever on the increase.

“Who can doubt now of the superiority of our
manner of treating this impertinent Cholera?
Has he dared even to touch our sacred battalion?”
said a magnificent mountebank-Turk, one of the standard-bearers
of the masquerade.

“Here is all the mystery,” answered another.
“It is very simple. Only laugh in the face
of the plague, and it will run away from you.”

“And right enough too, for very stupid work
it does,” added a pretty little Columbine, emptying
her glass.

“You are right, my darling; it is intolerably
stupid work,” answered the Clown belonging to
the Columbine; “here you are very quiet, enjoying
life, and all on a sudden you die with an atrocious
grimace. Well! what then? Clever, isn’t
it? I ask you, what does it prove?”